


In the Flesh

by PTomlin



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 18:32:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13036980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PTomlin/pseuds/PTomlin
Summary: Lup just wants her boys back the way they were





	In the Flesh

Having a flesh and blood body again after years trapped inside a vessel of wood and canvas takes...a bit of adjustment. Its wonderful, definitely, understatement of the century, but Lup has entertained so many visions over the lengthy term of her imprisonment, visions of her family, visions of a life of autonomy, fantasy based on memory to keep her anchored, keep her sane-- that sometimes she feels like she’s still dreaming. She grounds herself in her senses, in touch and taste and smell, because these are things her mind can’t fake. These are the things she can trust. 

Lup knows how high the odds were stacked against her. She knows that it is a testament to the bonds she shares with all of the IPRE, but with Taako and Barry especially, that she didn’t completely lose it while spending a literal decade trapped as a lich with nothing but her own thoughts for company. 

She’s curled around the latter nerd now, her lover, her Barry, head tucked up under his chin as they languish together in bed, in _their_ bed. Her brother is in the room across the hall probably curled up with his own nerd, and they’re safe, and it’s good, and they won, against all odds they’re alive and for the first time in a century and some change, they’re no longer running.

But having a physical form again also comes with certain unpleasant realizations. 

Lying here now, her arm reaching further around Barry’s middle than it ever has before, she is suddenly, acutely aware of how much has changed, how much she has missed. All of the lives her family has lived while she stayed stagnant. And Lup may be an optimist at her core, but it doesn’t really help in moments like this, when the weight of her regret is nearly overwhelming.

“Babe?” Barry says. 

“Hm?”

“You’re quiet tonight. Something wrong?” 

Once upon a time their bodies reset every year and she knew every inch of him from head to toe and he knew her in turn. This body she wears is new but it’s still her old body. She’s not new, not in the way that the rest of them are. She hasn’t changed. Her body is the same as it was the day she left the Starblaster twelve years ago, and Barry can trace his fingers down the pathways of her flesh and find them familiar as they have ever been to him.

Barry has changed. There’s less of him to hold, and it feels like a part of him got lost while she was gone, and she finds her own fingers stumbling, an uneasy accompaniment to the panicked skipping of her heart.

“You’ve lost weight,” she says.

There’s a pause.

“I didn’t mean to,” Barry tells her, hushed and solemn in the silence. 

Because of course he gets it. He knows her still. She hasn’t changed.

They’ve talked a lot since she’s been back. He’s told her some things about those years he spent alone, searching for her, searching for their family, trying to figure out what had happened, what Lucretia was planning, trying to keep everyone safe and alive. Dying, over and over, remembering his purpose, creating new bodies and forgetting all over again but pressing on anyway because in the end there was no other option.

But he talks like Taako talks now, like he’s trying to spare her the more horrible details, like he doesn’t want her to know how hard it was. Or maybe they just don’t want to remember. She tries not to blame them, but she can see it, she can see it on all of them, and Barry especially, those years of hardship etched into the lines of his body, the new scars on his skin, the lines on his face, the roughness of his hands, the shadows in his eyes when he doesn’t realize she’s looking. 

Lup shared a labspace with Barry (and a bed, and a starship, and a _life_ \--). The point is, she knows how he gets, how the both of them tended to get when they were on mission, neglecting sleep, neglecting food, driven to exhaustion by single minded determination. But they also tended to keep each other in check on those long research stints, concern for the other overriding concern for themselves, or if they hadn’t then someone else from the crew would, forcing them to take breaks, bringing them snacks, reminding them that there was still life outside their experiments. 

And then for twelve years, Barry was alone. 

She wasn’t there. She wasn’t there and life moved on without her. And the changes are all the more drastic after a century of sameness. Once upon a time she knew him and now he’s changed and she hasn’t and she’s afraid she’s going to wake up one morning and realize she doesn’t know him at all, and yeah Lup mostly knows that’s bullshit but it still scares her. She wonders what would have been different if she hadn’t left all those years ago, if she hadn’t made that fatal error--

But down that road of regret she would only find madness. 

It had all worked out in the end. 

Change is just a part of life.

Lucretia and Magnus are older now, Merle’s down an arm and an eye. And Taako, _gods_ , Taako is thinner than she’s seen him since they were kids and practically starving. He hides himself from her and wears his glamours almost constantly and he won’t talk to her and she hates it but if there’s something she still knows its her brother and there’s nothing she can do except wait for him to come around in his own time. 

And well, in the meantime there is one other thing she can do. 

They’ll talk about it later, but it’s too late for soul-baring and her new body is too tired, so Lup curls herself further around Barry until she’s practically on top of him and lets his fingers at her hip and his breath against her hair ground her and mutters into his shirt,

“Remind me to make pancakes in the morning.”

**Author's Note:**

> ptomlins.tumblr.com


End file.
